Due to the year-long suspension from professional MMA competition resulting from the positive steroid test, forty-five year-old Ken Shamrock was forced to withdraw from his March 21st scheduled bout with former pro wrestler, Bobby Lashley (1-0). The fight would have been Lashley’s highest profile fight to date and a chance for Shamrock to show critics he still belongs in the cage.
In a recent radio interview with BWR, Lashley gave his thoughts on Shamrock’s suspension, “It’s unfortunate that it happened because we were really looking forward to the fight…I told the commission I would still be willing to do the fight if we can because I really want to fight someone of his caliber.”

When asked if he thought Ken would ever fight again, Lashley replied, “Yeah, of course. Once fighting is in your blood, you are always gonna want to fight and you’re always gonna fight. I think this is just a set back versus a career-ender.”

Lashley does not feel the steroid suspension will hurt Ken Shamrock’s legacy. “You can’t take away from everything he did in his career. He’s one of the pioneers of the sport…You can’t take that all away because of something he did now.”

Lashley was asked if he was angry about the fight with Ken being cancelled or if he just thinks it is unfortunate, “It’s just unfortunate. I don’t take anything away from Ken. He’s still a great fighter. He’s still a great entertainer. And he’s still got a lot more to go.”

Lashley seemed empathetic with the MMA veteran when discussing Ken’s positive steroid test results. “He says he didn’t take anything but over the counter stuff, that’s what he says. If that’s what he says I’m not gonna doubt the guy.”

Oh yeah Bobby, why doubt the guy? Ninety-five percent of the people who test positive deny they did it, so it was probably just a mistake. Most people are honest anyway, right?

The former pro wrestler definitely still wants to fight Shamrock and if forced to wait a year for the fight to happen in America, he would be willing to move the fight to Japan to make it happen sooner.

When asked if he would be willing to take a fight with Brock Lesnar at this point, Lashley feels he is not quite ready. He realizes he is new to the game and feels he needs more time to get the fundamentals down solid. He also understands there are a lot of people who have “paid their dues,” in line for a shot at Lesnar in front of him.

A possible future nickname for Lashley could be, “The Black Diamond.” Apparently one of his friends calls him this.

Lashley is thirty-two years old. He said he definitely does not want to be fighting up into his mid-forties like Shamrock and others. He is predicting on making about a five-to-ten year run in MMA, then possibly get into coaching. However, after hearing his next statement, one has to wonder if his tenure in MMA will last more than a few fights.

Lashley made it very clear that he still loves wrestling and getting back into the WWE and professional wrestling is something he is definitely not opposed to one day. In fact, he says he misses it. He has had talks with the TNA professional wrestling organization. When asked, “Do you see yourself going there?” Lashley responded, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I wouldn’t say no, but I wouldn’t say yes.”